Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons^™

Nmda Receptor Inhibition On Rodent Optimal Decision-Making In The Diminishing Returns Task, Seth Foust

Research Psychology Theses

There has been growing interest in using N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists as treatments for mood disorders, but there is still much to learn about their cognitive effects. Research shows NMDA receptors can affect decision-making, and the antagonist MK-801 has had varying effects in rodents. Specifically, some have reported impairments in working memory while foraging behaviors remained intact, while others have demonstrated changes in choice behavior related to delay or risk in behavior tasks. We investigated the role of NMDA receptors in the specific paradigm of optimal decision-making to further confirm MK-801’s effects and to explore whether inhibiting NMDA receptors alters …

Creating Project Contrast: A Video Game Exploring Consciousness And Qualia, Pierce Papke

Honors Projects

Project Contrast is a video game that explores how the unique traits inherent to video games might engage reflective player responses to qualitative experience. Project Contrast does this through suspension of disbelief, avatar projection, presence, player agency in storytelling, visual perception, functional gameplay, and art. Considering the difficulty in researching qualitative experience due to its subjectivity and circular explanations, I created Project Contrast not to analyze qualia, though that was my original hope. I instead created Project Contrast as an avenue for player self-reflection and learning about qualitative experience. While video games might be just code and art on a …

Social Creatures: The Impact Of Solitary Confinement On Psychophysiological Health And How Inmates Percieve Their Humanity And Social Well-Being, Julia Austin

Honors Projects

This paper will define and examine the use of solitary confinement within the United States prison system and review its mental, physical, and social impacts. As social creatures, human mental and physical well-being depends on meaningful social interactions absent in segregation units. As it currently stands, vulnerable populations, including racial minorities, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and those with developmental disabilities or psychological disorders, are at risk of irrevocable harm and abuse within these facilities from staff as well as other inmates. With a rotating 80,000 inmates held in solitary confinement every day, the current structure of the prison system deemphasizes rehabilitation and …

How Music Therapy Effects The Traumatized Brain: Neurorehabilitation For Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Through Music Therapy, Jordan Winter Payne

Honors Projects

This review discusses the neurological components of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and how both structures and processes in the brain are altered in individuals with the disorder, specifically the neural network that includes the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, and the amygdala. This impacts awareness and responsiveness to stimuli. After examining these aspects, invasive and non-invasive treatment approaches are examined, with a specific emphasis on the treatment approach of music therapy. Musical stimuli are processed in many areas of the brain, so it has therapeutic potential for modulating neurological changes. Music therapy applies music clinically to address a variety of goals …

The Effects Of Arginine Vasopressin On Maternal Behavior And Aggression In Peromyscus Californicus Mothers, Nathaniel Ng

Honors Projects

Research studies since the 1950s have shown that a chemical within the brain called arginine vasopressin (AVP) is associated with the modulation of many different social behaviors in mammals. Some of these behaviors are related to parenting, such as parental care initiation, aggression, social recognition, depression and anxiety. Understanding the physiology behind AVP regulation could allow for the creation of new therapies for treating human social disorders, such as using an AVP receptor antagonist to attenuate anxiety. This project examines how neural injections of AVP and an AVP receptor antagonist affect both maternal care and aggression in female Peromyscus californicus …

Brainstorm: Violence, Videogames, And Learning To Say “I Don’T Know” – Part 2, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

This is the second (and final) installment in a series examining the effects of videogames on aggressive behavior in the people who play them.

We just finished looking at a study suggesting that violent videogames represent a deep, causal risk factor for inciting violent behavior in kids — a loving parent’s worst nightmare. We are about to look at a second article, published right after the first, which says exactly the opposite.

Brainstorm: Violence, Videogames, And Learning To Say “I Don’T Know” – Part 1, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

Confirmation bias is a term I have been thinking a lot lately, especially as the familiar gun­control/ gun­freedom pugilists take their respective corners on the far sides of our televisions.

One particular subject has to do with the role violent videogames play — or do not play — in creating aggressive tendencies in the people who play them (particularly young males).

Brainstorm: Experiences Are Better Than Things, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

My friend wanted me to explain the following comment, and quickly, because it was making him feel guilty.

“You’ve got three months with this gift,” I had just told him. We were out Christmas shopping for our spouses, and he was contemplating the purchase of a set of kitchen knives for his wife. “Just a quarter’s worth of goodness. After that, any blessing goes away.”

Brainstorm: How To Take A Multiple Choice Test, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

In this blog section, we are going to explore the science behind study habits. Most of these topics will concern myth busting, and we begin this segment with a whopper.

Brainstorm: Head Injuries And The Nfl, Part 13: End Of Regulation Play, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

In my last column I talked about my skepticism about the relationship between head injuries, CTE, and mental illness. I promised that in this, my last installment in the series, I would elaborate on some of the gaps that need filling. As I endeavor to fulfill that promise, I’ll also provide some perspective for future research.

Brainstorm: Head Injuries And The Nfl, Part 12: Grump Factor, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

I begin this entry on a sad note. While writing these last two installments in our series concerning CTE and the NFL, I found out about legendary linebacker Junior Seau’s suicide.

Brainstorm: Head Injuries And The Nfl, Part 11: Microglial Cells, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

We are trying to understand the biology of CTE at the most intimate level possible, the level of cells and molecules. The last entry dealt with the tau protein and its role in mediating closed­-head neural damage. In this installment, let’s consider the role of microglial cells, a little wisp of a cell type with a great big job.

Brainstorm: Head Injuries And The Nfl, Part 10: The Tau Of Cte, Continued, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

In our last installment, I wrote about a protein called tau, which necessitated talking about salt. I said that when neurons suffer the types of injury associated with CTE, part of the damage occurs because of a change in salt distribution between the inside of a neuron and its immediate outer exterior.

Brainstorm: Head Injuries And The Nfl, Part 9: The Tau Of Cte, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

These next two entries all about a protein called tau, which you have probably never heard of before. To understand CTE, however, we need to understand some critical biology surrounding tau. And to do that, we have to discuss something of which you have heard all your life. To talk about tau, we have to talk about salt.

Brainstorm: Head Injuries And The Nfl, Part 8: Cutting­Edge Nerves, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

Armed with information from the last installment about nerve cells’ basic biology, we can now talk about how they get injured in a more informed fashion. That’s the subject of this post, and also the next two.

Brainstorm: Head Injuries And The Nfl, Part 7: What Mops Have To Do With The Nfl, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

In the last few installments, we discussed some vulnerable regions of neurological real estate that suffer damage in afflicted athletes, and their association with changes in outwardly observable behavior. Unfortunately, this is only a partial list. Enough is now known that I could create three or four more installments of this blog and still not cover everything that is being researched.

Brainstorm: Head Injuries And The Nfl, Part 6: Memory Loss, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

We are in the process of examining the relationship between neurological damage associated with repeated closed­-head injuries and the behaviors of CTE. We’ve been using the example of spearing, illustrating the effects of this banned football behavior on the biological integrity of the human brain. We discussed how damage to one such neurological circuit, the Papez Circuit, can lead to chronic changes in mood. Here we discuss changes in three cognitive gadgets: executive function, memory processing, and motor control.

Brainstorm: Head Injuries And The Nfl, Part 5: On The Matter Of Damaging Neural Circuits, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

In the last installment, we examined the forces capable of causing brain injury, but left out the most important question: What happens to brain tissues unlucky enough to experience those forces? Now it is time to face the biological facts. In this installment, we will talk about neurological tissue and closed-­head injuries.

Brainstorm: Head Injuries And The Nfl, Part 4: The Physics Of Head Trauma, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

One fine afternoon in the autumn of 2010, Minnesota Vikings defensive end Ray Edwards executed one of the most dangerous acts you can do in football: He speared another player.

Brainstorm: Head Injuries And The Nfl, Part 3: A History Of Terms – Characteristics Of Cte, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

Though repetitive closed­head injuries are often experienced in professional contact sports, many injuries are minor, with collisions involving the head an everyday experience of the sport. Collegiate football players can sustain anywhere from 400 to more than 2,400 head impacts per season, depending upon the player — and possibly his position. The athlete usually walks it off, or is examined and benched for a period of time, lives to play another day. Eventually he joins the NFL, retires, starts endorsing products, and, except for maybe gaining a few pounds, seems to suffer few ill effects.

Brainstorm: Head Injuries And The Nfl, Part 2: A History Of Terms – Cte And Concussion, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

The history of research into the relationship between head injuries and contact sports starts not with football, but with boxing.

Brainstorm: Head Injuries And The National Football League, Part 1: An Introduction, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

This is all about head injuries and the National Football League. I have some mixed feelings writing about this subject mostly because — big surprise — it is not a pretty story.

Brainstorm: Brain Development, Part 2: We’Ve Only Just Begun, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

This is the second installment of a two­-part series briefly summarizing salient characteristics of in utero (literally “in the womb”) human brain development. Here, we will concern ourselves with the nature side of the nature/nurture issue of human behavior.

Brainstorm: Brain Development, Part 1: Of Mops And Brain Cells And Human Behavior, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

We have been discussing in equal measure the contributions that both natureand nurture make in the creation of human behavior. In this entry and the next, we are going to focus on the nature side of the discussion, summarizing a few features about how the human brain develops in the womb.

Brainstorm: Of Princesses And Football Players, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

Sports-­related head injuries are getting a lot of press these days. Learning from injuries sustained by prize fighters, hockey players, and American football players, researchers are beginning to understand there are severe consequences to sustained trauma on the mental life of professional athletes — even amateur, Saturday­afternoon athletes. Sports officials could do well to remember the cautionary tale I am about to relate here.

Brainstorm: Of Sign Language And Combat Veterans, Part 2, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

In the last entry I talked about sign language, and I promised in this space to talk about combat veterans. This entry fulfills the promise (though I am also going to talk about business cards).

Brainstorm: Of Sign Language And Combat Veterans, Part 1, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

Dr. McNeill has been researching the relationship between verbal and nonverbal communications for most of his career, a subject we began discussing last entry. His work is very relevant to our ongoing conversation about nature, nurture, and human behavior.

Brainstorm: Nature And Nurture And Dogs, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

It is easy to run across the intersection between nature and nurture in the everyday routines of life. You can even find it in a crisis, as the following true story relates.

Brainstorm: Of Weirds And Sushis And People Who Use Chopsticks, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

Understanding the contributions that nature and nurture make to a given behavior is tricky business, even for professionals in the field. The research world is littered with heroic, but ultimately unsuccessful, attempts to tease these apart.

Brainstorm: What Testosterone Has In Common With Schrodinger’S Cat, John J. Medina Ph.D.

Brainstorm

People are often startled by the extent to which environment plays a part in mediating the biological processes behind their behaviors.